Sister Mónica Astorga Cremona OCD (born Astorga Cremona in 1967) is an Argentine Catholic nun. She is the prioress of the Monastery of Santa Cruz and San José de Neuquén, a

cloister A cloister (from Latin , "enclosure") is a covered walk, open gallery, or open Arcade (architecture), arcade running along the walls of buildings and forming a quadrangle (architecture), quadrangle or garth. The attachment of a cloister to a cat ...

ed monastery in

Neuquén Neuquén (; ) is the capital city of the Argentine province of Neuquén and of the Confluencia Department, located in the east of the province. It occupies a strip of land west of the confluence of the Limay and Neuquén rivers which form t ...

. Cremona is the founder of Costa Limay Sustainable Complex for Transgender Women, an affordable housing community. She also runs programs to help transgender women find employment. Cremona has received recognition for her advocacy work from

Pope Francis Pope Francis (born Jorge Mario Bergoglio; 17 December 1936 – 21 April 2025) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 13 March 2013 until Death and funeral of Pope Francis, his death in 2025. He was the fi ...

Biography

Cremona was born in 1967 in

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires, controlled by the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southwest of the Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires is classified as an Alpha− glob ...

. She joined the

Discalced Carmelites The Discalced Carmelites, known officially as the Order of the Discalced Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel () or the Order of Discalced Carmelites (; abbreviation, abbrev.: OCD; sometimes called in earlier times, ), is a Catho ...

when she was twenty years old, and later served as the prioress of her convent. Upon joining the Carmelites, she began working with young drug and alcohol addicts and ministered to the region's incarcerated people. Since 2006, Cremona has been active in working with members of the transgender community in

. She started programs to encourage transgender women who are struggling addiction to overcome it and has helped some who worked as prostitutes to leave the sex trade and find other employment by teaching them other trades. She received support from Bishop Marcelo Angiolo Melani and Bishop Virginio Domingo Bressanelli for her work. In 2020, Cremona founded the Costa Limay Sustainable Complex for Transgender Women, an afforable housing project for impoverished transgender women. Costa Limay is the first permanent residence in the world to be dedicated to transgender people. The complex, which is a two-story building with twelve studio apartments, was formally inaugurated on 10 August 2020 in a ceremony attended by Governor

Omar Gutiérrez Omar Gutiérrez (born 24 September 1967) is an Argentine politician, who served as governor of the Neuquén Province from 2015 to 2023. He is the former minister of economy of the previous governor, Jorge Sapag. With his victory in the 2015 electi ...

and Mayor Mariano Gaido. It was built on land in the Confluencia neighborhood that was donated to Cremona's monastery by the local district and the project was funded by the local provincial government, having been built by the Provincial Institute of Housing and Urban Development and costing about around 27.6 million pesos (around $300,000). The complex includes a large park used as a vegetable garden and recreational space. The housing program allows the women to live in the complex for life without having to pay rent. Cremona wrote to Pope Francis, with whom she was friends with during his tenure as Archbishop of Buenos Aires, to inform him about the inauguration of the new housing complex, to which the pope replied, "God, who did not go to the seminary or study theology, will repay you abundantly" and said "May Jesus bless you and the Holy Virgin guide you." The pope also told Cremona that he is praying for her and the transgender women she assists, and asked that she, "don't forget to pray for me". Cremona has been referred to as "the nun of the trans" due to her work within the community. In July 2022, when interviewed by the

Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

James J. Martin for ''Outreach'', Cremona said: "Transgender people existed before any ideology. If it difficult to judge the foundational experiences f trans people Yes, I can say from my experience that the best thing is to know their lives, their sufferings and their joy. My invitation is to love like Jesus, not to judge."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cremona, Mónica Astorga Living people 1967 births 20th-century Argentine Roman Catholic nuns 21st-century Roman Catholic nuns Argentine LGBTQ rights activists Argentine Roman Catholic religious sisters and nuns Discalced Carmelite nuns LGBTQ and Catholicism People from Buenos Aires People from Neuquén Transgender topics and religion